Literary GeniusTips for using literary devices to improve journalistic writing

It smelled like…

The air smells like stale hamburgers and unbrushed teeth. It smells like cold coffee, like sour beer. It smells like exhaustion.

The air smells as if it has been inhaled and exhaled by too many people for far too long, and they are breathing it still, snoring and snuffling, sighing and murmuring as they sprawl about O’Hare International Airport, like refugees from some invisible war.

Tools of the trade

Anecdote Dialogue Repetition Partial sentences Personification Allusion Simile Metaphor Mild alliteration

Anecdote

A small story that represents the big truth.It doesn’t tell. It shows.

This story tells…

In Houston and other urban school districts across the nation, the safety of teachers and principals is a growing concern.

In the 2003 fall semester alone, there were 47 assaults against Houston Independent School District staff members, district security reports show. In each of the two previous school years, the total for both semesters was about 60 assaults.

This story shows…

James Miller was calling roll in his first-period history class last month when one of his 14-year old students started shouting, throwing paper and walking around the room.

The Stockard Middle School teacher’s cue to send him to the office came when the boy pulled a marijuana cigarette out of his pocket.

But before Miller could fill out the principal’s referral form, witnesses said, the youth punched him repeatedly in the face, slammed him against a chalkboard and knocked him out.

A classroom full of stunned eighth-graders looked on as the boy kicked the unconscious teacher in the chest and fled. Miller was left with a broken nose, loose teeth, eye damage and bruises. He has been on medical leave since the attack Jan. 7 at the southside school.

In Houston and other urban school districts across the nation, the safety of teachers and principals is a growing concern.

In the 2003 fall semester alone, there were 47 assaults against Houston Independent School District staff members, district security reports show. In each of the two previous school years, the total for both semesters was about 60 assaults.

Anecdote

Rain had begun to fall on Soldier Field when Carson Palmer ducked his head into the Bengals huddle and told wideout Chad Johnson to give him a short hook route — and nothing more. Midway through the third quarter in Chicago during Week 3, the Bengals didn’t need anything fancy. They were up 10-0 on their way to a 24-7 victory and a 3-0 record. The huddle broke. The ball was snapped. And there was Johnson, climbing over the top of the cornerback, taxi-hailing with his right arm as he streaked toward the end zone.

Anecdote

Having glanced away to freeze the safety, Palmer turned and threw to the shallow flat, where Johnson should have been. The pass was nearly picked off, but Johnson cantered back to the huddle, nonplussed. Despite his reputation for a renegade ‘tude, the wideout’s antics are generally in good fun and rarely to the detriment of his teammates. He’s rarely challenged in Cincinnati, but a red-faced and frothing Palmer exploded out of the huddle, ramming his face mask into Johnson’s and snarling, “Hey…Hey man! What the hell are you doing? Don’t you ever do that again. You understand me?”

Anecdote

Commissioners, coaches and cornerbacks have all tried and failed to find Johnson’s mute button. This time, though, he stood silent, frozen. The sight startled the other Bengals so much that they broke into nervous giggles. On the next play, Palmer hit Chris Henry up the other sideline for a 36-yard TD.

“I gotta tell you,” Johnson said later, “I won’t ever do that again. We can all laugh about it now, but, man, that was some scary s—. Carson don’t play. For real. I was speechless.”

Quieting Johnson is just one of several amazing feats Palmer has pulled off in Cincinnati this season.

Dialogue

Carrying only a clipboard and a malfunctioning pen, Judy Coyle raps briskly on the apartment door. A moment later, a 16-year-old girl opens it.

“How come you’re not in school?” Coyle asks.“’Cause I don’t feel good,” she replies.“I’ve sent you a warning,” Coyle says. “I’m fixing to go

one step further. I can take your mother to court or you can be in school. Now, y’all don’t have money for that. I’d hate to bring the police after you — but I will. Now I expect to see you in school tomorrow.”

Judy Coyle is on the job. Her silver shield, which she flashes police-style as she makes her rounds, identifies her as an attendance officer for the Irving Independent School District. But the children she tracks down know her as the truant officer.

Internal dialogue

Though it made her dizzy and sick to her stomach, junior Lisa Strolberg began smoking when she was 13 because, she explained, it made her feel accepted by the older girls she hung out with. They all smoked, so she did too.

She chased away her fears of disease and addiction by convincing herself, “I’m just doing this for now. I won’t get hooked. I can quit any time I like.”

Five years later, she’s still puffing away.“I’d like to quit,” she said. “I’m just not sure I can.”

Repetition

They had never flown in a plane. Never worn eye black. Never seen so many football fans.

The run to the state semifinals by the 1952 North Dallas football team — the Cinderella Bulldogs — was all about milestones. It was the school’s first playoff appearance in 16 years. And today, 50 years later, it is still the school’s most recent postseason trip.

Repetition

Soak up a year in America. Learn some English. Make some friends. Then return to Russia and deal with the rest of his life.

That was the plan anyway.But that was before his mother died. Before

he decided there was nothing left in St. Petersburg. Before he became a small-town basketball star at Toledo High School, along the Cowlitz River.

“How did I get here?” Artem Wallace asks rhetorically. “Oh man, where do I start?”

— Michael Ko, “Hoops journey spans half the world,” The Seattle Times

Partial sentence

After Jean Wheeler gave birth at age 17, she didn’t know what to do when her son cried. Or how to change his diaper. Or when to switch from milk to cereal.

She learned quickly, though, through the school’s Pregnancy Education and Parenting Program.

Without the program, “I wouldn’t have graduated,” Wheeler said. Now 19, she works two jobs, including part-time work at the school-district day-care center.

Partial sentence

Rhian Nevergold never thought her dad, a telecommunications engineer with two advanced degrees, would be out of work. Ever.

Her father, Richard, worked for a company that put him in charge of a large NATO communications project in Brussels, Belgium. He earned more than $100,000 a year and sent Rhian to an expensive private school. Life for the Nevergolds was good.

“He is so smart, and he worked so hard,” Rhian said.

Then everything changed. Her dad’s company downsized and cut his job. He has been out of work ever since.

Partial sentence

Two devastating hurricanes. Slow government response. Sixteen-hour, 200-mile traffic jams of fleeing residents. Tens of thousands displaced. Mold everywhere. Elderly patients drowning in nursing homes.

But that’s not all.A sideways stock market. Rising interest

rates. A barrel of oil at $67. Gas around $3 a gallon. Consumer confidence down.

It’s no wonder American investors are feeling vulnerable.

Partial sentence/metaphor

In fact, one month after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and ravaged New Orleans, followed by her evil twin, Rita, Americans in general are feeling over-wrought and depressed — like we’re all on Interstate 45 just trying to get out of town.

In a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll released today, 72% said they are somewhat or very worried about the effects of the hurricanes on the future of the United States. And 57% are somewhat or very worried about the effects on their own families.

Partial sentence/repetition

Shannon Hefferman, a junior at Center High School, has witnessed it. The taunting. The teasing. The bullying. Students teased about their clothes. Teased over how they speak, what they say. Teased for being “stupid,” teased for being who they are.

“I think it’s horrible,” says Shannon, 17. “There are people in our school who don’t even have friends. I’ve seen people get teased for horrible reasons.”

Personification

Trees must love Gordon Bell.The Microsoft researcher set out years

ago to live a paperless existence, and he’s just about there.

Personification

She was born in an old Coke can.Her father was a listless Lothario with bushy

antennae and not much personality. Mostly, he chased females and sucked nectar. Her mother was more ambitious — a leggy femme with an appetite for adventure and blood. Come evening, she’d go cruising for capillaries.

This Coke can had been discarded soda-less in a vacant lot. One spring day, Madre Mosquito — sated with blood and loaded with eggs — descended through the push-tab hole like a spelunker and splurted out eight ova. Our heroine was among them.

Allusion

It’s summer time and the painting’s not easy.

Storms are jumpin’ and the humidity’s high.

But nothing could dampen the spirits of 400 teenagers and 25 adult leaders who converged Monday for a week of repairing and rolling new paint onto 45 houses on Lansing’s east side.

Allusion

Of all the gym joints in the world, Marty Blake is liable to walk into yours if there’s even a whisper of a rumor that a pro prospect might be playing there. It’s his business to spin out, in eyes-only briefing books circulated among the 30 NBA teams, the prospective story of every credible, draft-eligible ballplayer on the planet.

But not dumb allusion…

To be or not to be. A drug addict, that is. Many students will experiment with drugs, and they will surely become hooked.

But not dumb allusion…

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men (and women!) should join the Chess Club!

Comparison

Welcome to the Wacko life of Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski, flakier than a truckload of Wheaties.

Simile

In 25 years I’ve been to at least 1,000 press conferences. World Series, Super Bowls, prizefights — huge rooms full of tough guys. But the most gripping press conference, the most unforgettable one, was last Thursday in a little room in Grand Junction, Colorado, starring a guy as skinny as a two-iron.

That was when 27-year-old adventurer Aron Ralston described for the world how he had saved his life by cutting off his lower arm with a dull pocketknife.

Simile

Johnny Cash was a rarer breed, an earthy yet dazzling poet-artist, a 6-foot-2 man with crevices like hatchet marks through his cheeks who sold more than 50 million records.

Simile

Thirty years ago, the average number of television channels that Americans could receive was seven; today, with the rise of cable and satellite television, it is 71. Thirty years ago, there was no Internet, therefore no Web, hence no online newspapers and magazines, no blogs. The public’s consumption of news and opinion used to be like sucking on a straw. Now, it’s like being sprayed by a fire hose.

But again, not stupid simile

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

Metaphor (good)

Jonathan Lebed was something of a legend at his high school in the leafy suburb of Cedar Grove, N.J., even before last week, when he became the first minor ever to be charged with stock fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The 15-year-old possessed that most coveted band of 21st century schoolyard cachet: he knew how to make big money on the Internet. For all intents and purposes, he is a spiky-haired shark in parachute pants, a modern day John Dillinger with a laptop computer and enough passwords to get him into all the right chat rooms and bulletin boards where his scams ranked in almost $300,000.

Metaphor (good)

Ponce de Leon Avenue is a fat boy’s dream.

In one two-block stretch, just north of downtown Atlanta, the drive-through fast-food restaurants are door-to-door, and the hungry but very busy people are bumper-to-bumper. A motorist can purchase three different brands of fried chicken, grab a handful of soft tacos, throw a pizza in the back seat, sample four different nationally advertised cheeseburgers and slurp down a butter-pecan milk shake and never get his car out of first gear.

Metaphor (bad )

The cafeteria is a veritable ocean of humanity, and the senior sharks slice their way through the great barrier reef, tearing into the freshmen as if they were baby seals.

Alliteration

Nobody beats Brady and Belicheck in a big game, not even Big Ben.

Tom Brady and Bill Belicheck were an unstoppable combination again for the New England Patriots, exposing all of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ weaknesses to end their 15-game winning streak and win the AFC championship, 41-27, on Sunday night.

Perfidious Pitfalls Of Alliterative Predilections

Using words you don’t know and no one else does either.

Nattering nabobs of negativism.

A titanic toady of timorous torpidity.

Sacrificing accuracy for cuteness or cleverness.

The ragged rascal raced around the rugged rock.

Student spirit sparkles as the spring semester starts.

The flame of freedom burns brightly for the brave Americans who face the ferocious fight.

Pulling it all together

Using literary devices

Have a purpose other than showing off. Use them sparingly. Write with your ear. Listen for tone and pace. Develop an honest voice. Read. Read. Read. Practice. Practice. Practice. Open your eyes!

‘Your talent is in your choices’Stella Adler, drama teacher,to a young Marlon BrandoNew York City, circa 1947